


i been in the valley

by limerental



Series: Witcher Equestrian AU [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Lovers, Equestrian, F/M, First Time, Geralt is a horse girl, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:47:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22456693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limerental/pseuds/limerental
Summary: Jaskier is the reckless sort of brave that thinks nothing of wearing white breeches on an impromptu trail ride, and Yennefer has clawed her way up from nothing to an esteemed training position at a sprawling equestrian complex. When a mysterious, decidedly attractive stranger with a knack for horsemanship and an unknown backstory arrives one day at the barn, neither is the type to just sit back and let the other seduce him. Competition is what they know best, and Geralt is first prize.Or the equestrian witcher AU literally no one asked for but that we all deserve.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Witcher Equestrian AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645816
Comments: 30
Kudos: 355





	i been in the valley

**Author's Note:**

> *old town road plays quietly in the distance*

It's when Yennefer, yowling like an aggrieved feline emerges smeared and stained and stinking from the manure pile, that Jaskier knows quite assuredly that he has won this fight. The bounce of her perfect dark curls has been thwarted, her previously pristine riding clothes disheveled, and the blood-red fingernail she points his way as she rounds on him sports an obvious chip in the lacquer.

“ _You--_ ,” she hisses as she heads toward him, and it is then that Jaskier remembers he should have fled farther away before she managed to clamber her way out of the heap and stand.

“Hey now, it's not my fault you were standing so close to the--” He dodges a swipe of her arm and squeaks, hurrying backwards. “Maybe if you weren't such a raging _bitch_ , this wouldn't have--”

One of her strikes catches him across the shoulder, and then they are scrabbling with one another. Jaskier regrets having taken off his spurs before the confrontation. Expensive fabric tears, and he yelps and whirls to grab a fist of her hair, dragging her back as she scratches and shrieks.

There is a strange, weightless feeling suddenly as something grabs him by the back of his jacket and bodily lifts him up, the same force lifting Yennefer away as well.

It's Geralt, holding them one in each arm.

“Right,” he says. “Now, can we explain what the fuck is going on here?”

* * *

It starts like this:

The new manager of the lower barn arrives one morning in a rusty, red pickup hauling a slant-load, two horse trailer. He parks the rig out near the fenceline and unloads its single occupant: a plain red mare who disembarks with ears pinned and head shaking in contempt for her long journey.

The large man who leads her down to the barn is dressed in worn denim and a faded flannel rucked up to the elbows, his long, grey hair pulled back at the base of his neck. His broad shoulders and muscled bulk speak of a lifetime of physical labor, but his calloused hands are gentle as he pats the mare's neck, soothing her in a low voice as they disappear into the lower barn together.

His arrival, of course, sends the entire equestrian complex into an unparalleled tizzy.

“They're just not so sure how to take you, is all,” says the young groom, Marilka, who has been tasked with giving him the grand tour. “The last manager down here was some crotchety old fart who spent all his time ranting about how all young folks these days are spoiled, ungrateful brats and the lot of it's going to shit.”

“I see,” says the new barn manager. They walk beside each other along a gravel walk towards the center of the complex.

“You're not quite the usual fare around here, you know? Lots of folks with more money than sense. Olympians and Olympic hopefuls. All the big names in the industry. It's rare anyone springs out of nowhere without people knowing just where they came from.”

“I'm trying to decide if I should be insulted or not,” he says.

“Oh, probably,” says Marilka. “Come on then, Geralt. Lots to see.”

She shows him the Olympic-sized riding arena, luxurious sand footing freshly-raked, flags fluttering in the skylit rafters, stadium seating banked on either side. She shows him the barn aisles that spider web away from the arena in every direction, brick-floored with swooping wrought-iron bars along the front of each stall and opulent chandeliers glittering in intervals along the cedar roofline. She shows him the tack rooms with their many rows of gleaming cubicles and the well-organized feed rooms and the pristine wash stalls and the grooming stalls that even so early in the morning thrum with activity as grooms bustle here and there, a whole fleet of horses being tacked and curried and untacked and cooled out and slathered in liniment and massaged and prodded at.

Geralt stops to stroke a hand down the nose of a patient dapple grey who stands with lip hanging, fully tacked and waiting on a rider. The groom in the next stall over gives him a look and then a second, longer look.

“Lots to see,” Marilka says and drags him on.

She shows him the outdoor arenas, one after another lined with palm trees and scattered with colorful poles and jumps. She points out the apartment building where many of the grooms and working students are put up and the luxurious townhouse community further on occupied by various live-in trainers and seasonal clients.

“There's even a swimming pool,” she says. “With a sauna.”

She shows him two more indoor arenas that abut the main complex with an expanse of parking spaces between them. Beyond that, a line of dirt paddocks and beyond that, green pasture sweeping out to the horizon.

“And that's you,” she says, pointing to where the lower barn sits in a hollow just before the line of the first pasture fence. “You've got just about the most peaceful spot on the property, I'd say.”

* * *

The lower barn is a mix of youngsters, rehab cases, and retirees, the odds and ends and castoffs of the sprawling equestrian complex. The barn stands nearly empty most times of the day, as its residents take to the pasture, only those unfortunate souls on stall rest staying behind. A quaint but decidedly modern apartment sits above the barn, all chrome accents and slanting skylights that let in streams of light.

Geralt mucks each stall alone in the dusty air of the barn, the lack of grooms or lackeys or other help a distinct contrast to the rest of the complex, and that's just how he likes it. He forks manure into a wheelbarrow one sieve through fine shavings at a time, then moves to the next stall and the next, until the full wheelbarrow can be pushed to the edge of the manure heap and dumped.

It's quiet, easy work that lulls him into a solid peace with the world. Or, it is for the first few days, until the unspoken hush around him wears off and the churning wheel of barnyard gossip can no longer run on simple speculation and sends probing fingers to investigate.

* * *

“So Geralt,” says Yennefer, when she catches him one afternoon outside the tack room. She's met him just the once when he first made the rounds in the tow of a young groom. He's been reclusive, hardly leaving the lower barn unless strictly necessary. “Settling in well?”

He holds a roll of vet wrap in his hand. Out of it down in the barn and he's got a yearling with fresh stitches on her fetlock who keeps trying to rub them out as if she's dead set on another vet visit.

“Yeah,” he says. He gestures with the vet wrap. “Sorry, I'm kind of--”

“I've got some free time before I have to meet with a client,” she says. “I'll come help.”

They walk through the noisy barn aisles together, looking an odd pair.

Yennefer wears tall, brown riding boots, tan breeches, and a white polo, her dark hair pulled to a bun at the base of her neck, not a hair out of place. Geralt wears muck boots, stiff jeans with a rip in the back pocket and a lighter denim button down. He's covered in a fine dust of shavings with dirt (or Yennefer hopes it's dirt) smeared on his forehead and hay caught in his grey ponytail.

“So,” she begins, holding the skittish yearling by the halter as Geralt coaxes the horse to keep her right hind still. “What did you do before this?”

“You mean, where the hell did I come from?” he says in an amused rumble.

“More directly, yes.”

“I trained at Kaer Morhen,” he says and waits for the inevitable stumbling over the name. The place carries an infamy that some fear and some envy. He doesn't yet know which Yennefer is likely to be.

“ _The_ Kaer Morhen?” she asks, though of course, there is no other place. “They say Kaer Morhen produces horses so universally talented, there's a wonder they're not molded from clay and enchanted to life.” Envy, then. With a touch of awe.

“They do say that,” says Geralt.

“I have one from Kaer Morhen in training with me now,” she says. “She's a work of art. Could clear a hundred fences and not slow or break a stride or knock a rail. You should come and watch her go.”

“I'm sure she's lovely,” he says. He presses the last coil of vet wrap snug around the yearling's wounds and stands.

“Why leave?” she asks. “What does this place have to offer you that a place like that couldn't?”

“Peace and quiet,” he says and leads the yearling back to her stall.

* * *

“Geralt,” says Jaskier as he urges his flighty gelding along the fenceline after the man riding the red mare. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Jaskier,” says Geralt, turned back in the saddle to watch his horse jig sideways along the path. “Are you sure that's a trail horse?”

“What?” he asks, trying and failing to cajole the dark bay into lowering his head. “Oh, don't worry about Lute, he's just a bit hot some days.” The horse seems to be attempting a series of new dressage moves, legs flicking wildly.

“Lute?”

“His registered name's Vibrato,” says Jaskier, sitting quietly through his mount's nonsense. “Not a lot of flattering derivative nicknames from that one, so I went with something clever and associative.”

“And Lute is the best you could come up with?”

“Oh, as if Roach is the pinnacle of ingenuity.”

Roach ambles along the grassy path, doing an impressive job of ignoring the antsy horse at her side, ears twitching slightly backwards as if daring him to come closer and see just how quickly she'll stop ignoring him.

Despite the gelding's fussiness, Jaskier looks well-put together as always, his pale blue polo tucked into pure white breeches seeming a brave choice for an impromptu trail ride on a feisty horse. The trail winds down along the pasture before entering a copse of pine woodland, the horse's hooves muffled by layers of needles as shafts of golden light fall through the bows of the trees.

Lute stares hard at each twig and twisted root, blowing air through his nose.

“So, I heard you're a Kaer Morhen dropout come to sow chaos amidst our humble complex.”

“Forgot how fast word travels in places like this,” says Geralt.

“Oh, nothing can beat an equestrian gossip mill, that's for sure,” says Jaskier. “Especially not with Yennefer in the middle of it.”

“Hmm,” Geralt grunts.

“She's bad news,” says Jaskier. “I'd keep my distance if I were you.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Geralt says and clucks to Roach. Roused into a trot, the mare continues steady on down the path, Lute flouncing along beside her.

* * *

“So Yennefer and Jaskier,” Geralt says, finally giving in to curiosity. “What's the deal with them?”

“You mean why do they heat each other's guts?” asks Marilka.

She's made somewhat of a habit of bringing him lunch and a coffee from time to time, and they sit eating on dusty trunks in the barn aisle together, Geralt mostly _hmming_ along to whatever inane thing she's prattling on about. But even his stubborn will to avoid prying into things he shouldn't and avoid even the faintest inkling of barnyard dirt (beyond the non-metaphorical) can only last so long.

“Who knows. Maybe she accidentally took his latte order in the coffee shop or something. Maybe he wore a brown saddle with a black bridle one time. Could be anything! But fact is, they've hated each other for ages.”

“And that's not discouraged. Two of your top trainers hating each other?”

“Oh, it's encouraged if anything. This business is a competition down to each nitty gritty detail. Would be more strange if your top trainers could stand each other.”

Geralt grunts. “I'm reminded every day why I prefer horses to people.”

* * *

In the luxurious townhouse community adjacent to the stables, Yennefer and Jaskier live opposite one another.

Each morning, Jaskier sits out on his front balcony in a downy bathrobe to watch the sunrise, feet up on the railing as he sips at a mug of steaming coffee. Yennefer sits across from him doing the same.

She is up and dressed and in the barn before the sun has fully risen above the horizon, her first horse of the day already tacked and waiting for her, handed off by a tireless groom. Ciri warms up the next horse as she finishes with the first, so the only pause is in slipping from the saddle to hand off the reins and swing a leg over the next.

She keeps a strict rotation of flat day, jump day, lunge day, rest with each horse, staggered so the mornings are for jumpwork while the rings are still empty, midday for flatwork and evenings for lungework with client lessons and meetings spaced in-between.

Woe be to any poor soul who interferes with her meticulous whiteboard schedule.

This is how she made her way to the top, and this is how she stays there.

Jaskier, meanwhile, is slow to rouse, beginning each day in the barn with a consultation with the grooms and a visit to each horse in his care. He feeds them a peppermint each and runs a hand along their back and down their legs, checking for soreness or heat.

His working students handle the morning rides as he watches and gives occasional instruction.

Yennefer takes only one student at a time, the position highly sought after, but Jaskier prefers to see them do the work and learn from it. After all, he only became the rider and man he is today thanks to his efforts riding varied mounts as often as possible.

He picks his rides for the afternoon based on how they looked in the morning, ones with excess vigor and lust for life taking priority. Of his string in training, he often picks favorites and focuses his personal efforts on them.

His afternoon schooling coincides with Yennefer's lessons, and he acknowledges her with a stiff nod, calling out his movements in a voice that carries across the outdoor arena.

“Inside!” he shouts, thundering past Yennefer's working student, Ciri, on the rail. She rides a blood bay mare stretched down into a bouncy trot.

“I worked my ass off to get where I am,” Yennefer is saying to Geralt along the fenceline. “It's why I get the horses I do.” A sheen of sweat shines on the mare's flexing neck. Each muscle and vein shows clearly like the rigid lines of a statue. “Aretuza is one of the nicest mares I've ever seen. Even for a Kaer Morhen.”

“The girl rides her well,” says Geralt.

“She's talented, yes,” says Yennefer. “I'm sure one trained in the same place could bring out the mare's potential even further.”

“You're just trying to dig up more of my juicy backstory.”

“Guilty,” she says. “Everyone's... fascinated. Wonders why someone like you isn't working with the best of them instead of... well.”

“Maybe I was a shit horseman,” he says. “You can't know.”

“I've seen you and that mare,” she says. “As plain as she is, if you asked her to, she'd jump the moon.”

When no more details are forthcoming, she turns back to watch Jaskier swing a tight rollback on Vibrato and soar over an oxer.

“His rich uncle owns half the complex,” she says. “He's never had to work for a thing in his life, just had it all handed to him.”

“He seems to hold his own well enough,” says Geralt.

“Vibrato's sloppy. See how he wastes energy crossing his front legs over the jumps? Jaskier encourages it. Says he prefers horses with character. It's all showmanship to him, but behind the dramatics? Hot air. My horses are outperforming his all over the Continent.”

“Why do you care?” asks Geralt.

“Why don't you?” She looks at him watching Aretuza rise into a rhythmic canter. “Why did you leave Kaer Morhen?” she asks not for the first time.

“I guess I burned out,” he says. “There's a point where you have to let go of the expectations placed on you and make your own way forward.”

“I don't think I could do it,” Yennefer says. “Give up on all this.” A sweeping gesture across the arena and barns and fields beyond.

“I didn't give up,” says Geralt. “Just thought harder about what pleases me.”

* * *

“Lute seems off,” says Jaskier as he approaches the lower barn, the dark bay gelding trailing on a lead behind him. “Will you check if his legs have heat for me? I can't quite tell.”

“Don't you have a vet for this?” Geralt asks, though he is already moving to feel down the horse's legs.

“Multiple,” says Jaskier. “But you're closer.” _And prettier,_ he thinks.

“You favor him over your others,” says Geralt as his fingers slide down fetlock and pastern, thumbs smoothing along the coronary band. He lifts each hoof and presses along the frog.

“He's a good horse. Gives it his all,” says Jaskier. “You favor Roach.”

“I don't have anyone paying me to train her up and sell her off,” says Geralt.

“As if you'd sell her.”

“Not for all the money in the world.”

Jaskier is silent as Geralt continues his inspection.

“It's one thing to grind out horse after horse like Yennefer and the like,” he says finally. “And another to build up something truly great.”

“Not much market for a truly great gelding.”

“It's not about that. It's the principle,” he says. “My life's legacy will be horses like him. No one will remember Yennefer and her hoard of identical horses in another lifetime, but a truly great horse? That stays in people's minds.”

“You'd rather be a one-hit wonder?”

“If it's catchy enough, it could outlive me a dozen times over,” he says.

After a while, Geralt stands and pats the horse on his shoulder.

“He feels fine. Maybe just give him the day off and see how he goes tomorrow.” The yard around the lower barn is loud with the echoing sound of shrieking cicadas, and the afternoon sun paints dappled splotches across the two men and the horse.

“If you wanted, you could manage any barn in the world. Stud farms, training programs, sales barns. The biggest and brightest would have you,” Jaskier says. “Why choose here? This hovel on the outskirts of nothing spectacular.”

“Maybe this is my legacy,” says Geralt. “A moment of calm amidst the chaos.”

“I think this place might need more of that than you have to give,” says Jaskier, and Geralt smiles, shaking his head, and returns to his work.

* * *

Geralt is handsome. This is an understatement.

He seems never to tire in his work, always moving at a steady pace, lifting or shoveling or pushing or tossing. His browned forearms flex, sleeves cut out of ratty t-shirts to accommodate broad shoulders, the bulk of his bunching arms. His makeshift tank tops are loose enough that the flutter of a breeze as he bends offers a tantalizing glimpse of a toned torso or the dimples at the base of his spine.

Even wearing unflattering stiff jeans or stained work pants, the girth of his thighs and shape of his pert bottom can be easily (and liberally) guessed at.

His hair has gone fully grey but otherwise, his age isn't readily discernible. He could be in his thirties, give or take a decade or two. His eyes are a mellow sort of amber, browline prominent, nose aquiline, lips shapely.

But despite how blatant and brazen Yennefer's attraction to him feels, it just seems a bit too shallow for her. Anyone with eyes can see that Geralt is attractive, but there have been men (and women) she has found equally attractive and there will be more after him. She rarely indulges in trysts or tumbles. Too distracting, too risky and not something she needs to be happy.

So she's content to watch from afar, to needle at him just to savor the reaction, to leave her filthier desires to the closed up world of her imagination, because sure, a romp or two would be fun and likely very athletic and adventurous, but she can contain her libido. There are things more important.

It's only when Yennefer catches Jaskier looking that her last resistance splinters all at once and a laser-focused drive solidifies in her mind.

Geralt is leading a particularly feisty stall rest case on a walk across the property to stretch his legs. Walking being a bit of a misnomer for the horse-shaped kite he appears to be flying. His body tenses with the struggle to keep the horse earthbound, the rigid strength of his body showing in rippling sinew and firm lines.

She sees the way that Jaskier is watching him, the quick dart of his Adam's apple, a flush on his cheeks, and then, his eyes happen to meet hers across the outdoor arena. He quirks a brow, and a little thrill of _challenge accepted_ jolts down her spine.

She's going to fuck Geralt before Jaskier does or make a fool of herself trying.

Jaskier, in the same moment, thinks, _catch up if you can, bitch._

And the game is on.

* * *

It's Jaskier who moves first, approaching Geralt one morning with all of his characteristic lack of subtlety.

“Hey Geralt,” he says. He's fresh from a good ride, still flush with adrenaline. “Funny, in all this time, I haven't seen you with a single woman.”

“You see me with women all the time, Jaskier,” says Geralt. “And I've only been here a few months.”

“You know that's not what I mean.”

“Well, I haven't seen you with a woman either,” he says.

“Exactly,” says Jaskier.

“You're implying something about my sexual preferences?”

“Implying, yes,” he says and pauses for effect, drawing out the moment. “Maybe hoping.”

Geralt stops in his work and looks at the man, brown hair tousled by his riding helmet, cheeks flushed pink with fading exertion, rocking back and forth on the heels of his tall, leather boots, and he huffs out a laugh, knocks Jaskier in the shoulder.

“I'm too old for you, my friend,” he says and goes into the feed room, conversation over.

Not long after Jaskier has traipsed back up to the barn alone, dejected but not deterred, Yennefer appears, lounging back on a tack box to peer at her freshly-manicured nails. Geralt is busy sweeping the barn aisle, clouds of dust rising from a worn push broom.

“You know, if you ever needed some stress relief,” she begins, voice pitched to carry down the aisle. “I'd be happy to oblige.”

“I'm not stressed,” says Geralt.

“Some exercise, then.”

“Does it look like that's something I'm lacking?”

“Entertainment?” she asks. “Revelry?”

“Yennefer,” he says. “You and I both know any... revelry with you would be more stress-inducing than relieving.”

“Well, the offer still stands,” she says and slips to her feet, moving toward him with fluid grace. She stops the sweep of his broom with a delicate hand held at the crook of his elbow, turns him toward her to look up into his face. His expression is guarded, silver wisps of hair askew around the creases of his forehead. “Certain stressors can be... very rewarding.”

“I'm sure you've got work to do, Yennefer,” Geralt says. Her eyes are a defiant spark of lavender, round jaw set in a determined line as she looks at him, searching. Finally, she lets her hand fall from his arm and steps back from him.

“You think you're so impenetrable. Unknowable,” she says. “But I can see right through you, Geralt.”

“See you around, Yennefer,” he says, not without fondness, and she goes.

* * *

Word of the shared rejections get back to the other by nightfall.

Finishing with her last horse of the day as the setting sun casts purpling shadows across the footing of the indoor arena, Yennefer catches Jaskier watching from the barn aisle as she allows the gelding she is lunging to fall to a trot.

She smirks at him, and he sticks out his tongue.

 _Ha!_ , they think in almost the same moment. _I have this in the fucking bag._

That evening, Yennefer indulges in a bottle of wine and a steaming bath, slipping beneath the water in her clawfoot tub with a breathy sigh.

Across the way, Jaskier luxuriates in equal fashion, scented bath salts enveloping him in a cloud of fragrance as he plucks at the wooden cheese platter balanced on his knees.

Geralt, sprawled in bed in his moonlit apartment above the lower barn, deals with the knowledge that his dismissal today is unlikely to be the end of the conversation for either of them the only way he knows how.

“Fuck,” he curses and rolls over into sleep.

* * *

Just as Geralt predicts, after his initial refusal, their efforts immediately intensify into a flurry of assorted seduction techniques.

Jaskier is suddenly clumsier than usual with equipment in Geralt's presence, bending dramatically to retrieve a fallen currycomb or polo wrap, well aware of his most comely asset. Once, he goes as far as to fling a hoofpick into a nearby water trough, fishing about so long shoulder deep in the water that he comes up with his collared button down gone see-through along the front with trailing wetness.

Geralt snorts and tosses him a clean saddlepad to dry himself off.

Yennefer leans on things more often, one long, long leg poised in front of the other, her hip accentuated into a sensual curve. She moves forward to touch Geralt when they talk, a subtle brush of fingertips along his bicep or the back of his knuckles. She need not fling herself into water troughs to win his attention. The smallest touch will be enough to wear him down.

Jaskier begins to leave the top buttons of his shirts open to reveal the line of his throat and thatch of dark chest hair. Yennefer, who still has standards, keeps her blouses firmly closed, but she often shakes her hair loose after a long ride, fingers working through her scalp with a sigh as the dark hair swings between her shoulderblades.

If it isn't suggestive lounging and sprawling and bending before him, it's insisting that Geralt is the only one available across the whole complex capable of checking their horses for soundness.

“Ban Ard seems off,” Yennefer says, just as Jaskier stalks in behind her.

“Lute's of-- oh,” he says and stalls.

“Hmm,” Geralt says. In all his months here, he has rarely seen the two in such close proximity. If looks could kill, both would be bloodied and dying twice over.

“I was here first,” says Jaskier, petulant, to which Yennefer huffs.

“You clearly were not.”

The pair stand in crossed arm silence along the fenceline as Geralt watches Ciri lead Ban Ard into the ring and trot him back and forth along the straight away. The grey stallion does seem to have a hitch in his gait and a slight bob to his head, signaling some kind of discomfort in his legs or body.

“I hope you know I charge a consult fee,” says Geralt but stoops in the arena to run his hands down the horse's front right leg anyway, finds the pulse leaping in his pastern. He looks at Yennefer. “Get the vet out,” he says. “Could be anything, and again, I'm not actually getting paid to do this.”

A sultry smile pulls at her lips, and she leans against the fence.

“Oh, there's one way I could pay you if you'd--”

“Oi!” says Jaskier.

“Yuck,” says Ciri.

Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose with a long-suffering sigh. If anything, he's the one paying. These two are going to cost him his sanity.

And things may have continued to drag on in a similar fashion for indefinite lengths of time, if not for the runaway horse.

* * *

The next week, it's Ban Ard who, in a fit of enthusiasm for his return to work after being cleared by the vet, tosses his rider free of the saddle, soars over the arena fence, and makes for the hills.

“Loose horse!” comes the shout from the arena as hoofbeats thunder along gravel.

Geralt is hand-grazing Roach along a green swath of grass in a depression below the outdoor arenas. The land drops off to a stand of trees along a creek and sweeps up again to the first pasture fence. Ban Ard's hooves leave great divots in the turf as the stallion charges down the hill past him, his loose stirrups flapping along his flanks.

“Fuck,” says Geralt, his whistling and spread arms ignored, the horse churning the creek as he plows through and up to clear the five foot pasture fence with barely a grunt of effort. That pasture stands empty, no herd to draw him in, and beyond the taller line of the far fence lurks a steep drop to the edge of a speeding highway. If the horse is stupid enough to try to clear it, which the young stallion certainly is, it could spell disaster.

He tosses the lead rope over Roach's neck, swings up onto her bare back, and is away after Ban Ard. The closest gate is too far down the fenceline; he'll have to--

Roach senses his plan of action before he asks anything of her, and she charges through the creek, droplets flying to darken her underbelly. Her ears flick forward as they approach the pasture fence, and she tucks her knees and thrusts with her hind legs to clear it. Without the same effortless talent as the young stallion, she comes down hard on the other side, Geralt gripping mane to keep from being jostled from her back. She does not slow, following the stallion's trail up the round of the hill at a speed that sends her breath gusting from her lungs.

“Good gal, Roach,” Geralt says and grips her wide back with his thighs, leaning to coax her on. The pasture is a long series of rolling hills, lush with mowed grass, and the stallion slows to a trot to crest some of them, head and tail raised high, allowing the red mare to gain on him.

When he notices her following, Ban Ard squeals and bucks and dives off at a full-tilt gallop, ducking back into a widening circle around them. The far fenceline looms, higher than those that don't border the edge of the property, but not high enough to discourage a horse like Ban Ard. He may not take the leap with the mare so close to distract him, but he circles in a blind frenzy, worked up to a foamy lather, eyes rolling white in his head.

He screams out a whinny and launches into aerial acrobatics, the thump of his stirrups and loose reins incensing him further.

Sweat has broken out on Roach's neck, her body gone slippery with it, and Geralt tightens his legs to stay with her as she surges up another hill, drawing closer to the frantic stallion. Ban Ard has turned his full attention to the mare, his powerful legs flailing akimbo as he circles and bucks, too dangerous to try to approach and catch as he is.

“Away, girl,” says Geralt and touches the mare's neck to turn her back toward home, hoping the stallion will follow. Ban Ard does, charging behind them and then circling away again, close enough almost to touch and then up the next low hill and back. He has all the indecisive spirit of a young horse unused to free rein and not quite sure what to do with it. A beautifully stupid animal. Unpredictable.

He may follow Roach into a stop if Geralt draws her up or he may continue on at speed and run until he breaks a leg or tries a fence he can't clear.

As the land begins to dip, signaling they are coming up on the gate that opens toward the complex, Geralt swears, takes the gamble, and leans back to slow Roach to a trot and then a halt as the stallion sweeps down behind them.

“Whooaaa,” he says, low and clear, and at first it seems that the horse will continue on without them but then, he draws to a heavy sliding stop, crow-hopping and tossing his head. He swings back to approach the mare, sweat-dark neck arched and flared nostrils fluttering with a rumbling nicker. Even exhausted and shuddering with exertion, Roach manages a deadly expression of ear-pinned distaste.

Seizing his opportunity, Geralt slips quietly from her back and grabs the stallion's bridle. After that, Ban Ard leads easily beside Roach down the mud-churned hill to the pasture gate and through it, head drooping mildly, the cooling sweat and splattered filth across his body and tack the only sign of his recent excitement.

A small crowd waits for them at the gravel path along the arena, and a groom rushes up to take the stallion's reins from him. Another reaches for Roach and Geralt grumbles at him to leave her be.

All eyes are on him, grooms and working students and assorted onlookers alike, and Geralt grimaces. Anyone in the complex would have been able to see the whole spectacle go down. No one's likely to shut up about this stunt anytime soon. Great.

Yennefer steps forward from the crowd.

“Go see to your horse,” he says. “Might want a vet check on that front right again.”

“That was...” She hesitates long enough for Jaskier to make himself known, wiggling through the crowd.

“That was _godly_ ,” he says, mouth hanging open “That was the best riding I've ever seen.”

“Roach needs tending to,” he says and then louder, to the muttering spectators. “Quit fucking gawking and get back to work.” The crowd scatters at once.

* * *

Roach earns a long, leisurely walk to cool her off and then a deep shampooing in the open wash stall behind the lower barn, soap scrubbed into her tired muscles.

Absorbed in his careful work, he doesn't notice Jaskier approach until he speaks.

“I wasn't kidding earlier,” he says as he stops on Roach's other side. “I've never seen riding better than that.” He isn't dressed for the barn, wearing a peachy turtleneck and tartan ankle-length pants and brown loafers. He looks ridiculous. It shouldn't elicit a sinking fondness in Geralt's chest, but it does.

“Got a date?” he asks and regrets it immediately, as a sly smile slips onto Jaskier's face.

“Wouldn't you like to you know,” he says.

“Not my business. Forget I said that.”

The playful gleam in Jaskier's eyes says he certainly does not mean to forget it anytime soon.

Geralt cracks the cap of the shampoo bottle, spreads more soap across the mare's neck, and curries it into her coat with meticulous circles that sweep from poll to shoulder.

“Listen,” says Jaskier after a while, all playfulness faded. “It's not just that I find you attractive. That isn't all.” Geralt concentrates on the line of Roach's muscles, sinking his weight into his strokes. “I've never known anyone like you, Geralt. What you did today was-- well, it's just what you do.” He steps closer to Roach's side, idly scratching the mare's withers as he speaks, looking off beyond her shoulder instead of at the other man.

“You give so much of yourself to anyone who asks. You pretend you wouldn't and you bitch and moan the whole time, but you'd drop anything to help one of us. You'd risk your life on some blind charge just to catch somebody else's loose horse. That's-- that's the man that I-- well, that's why I...” He stutters with an uncharacteristic struggle for words.

“Jaskier,” says Geralt. “Please don't.” He could mean _please don't say it_ or _please don't love me_. There is a silence broken only by the wet swat of Roach's tail as the flies begin to pester her.

“If you ask me to let it go, I will,” he says. “I just would like to know why. It's one thing if you're scared, but if you find me hideous and irritating and--”

“I don't,” Geralt interrupts. “Find you hideous.” Jaskier smiles.

“Oh but no word on the irritating then?”

“That's a fucking given.”

He slips the trickling hose along the crest of Roach's neck to finish washing the soap from her mane, the mare's lip hanging loose as his fingers work into the roots of the coarse hair. Jaskier steps back to watch him, something contemplative on his face.

“I'm not letting this go,” Jaskier says and, without another word, leaves him be.

* * *

The evening chores are finished and Geralt has retreated to his apartment above the barn, leftover pizza warming in the oven and a chilled beer open in his hand when there is a knock at the door.

“I won't try anything,” says Yennefer, standing in the doorway. “I'd just like to thank you, and then I'll be on my way.”

“You just did,” says Geralt but steps back from the door to allow her in. She perches on the couch, hands folded in her lap. He gestures with the bottle in his hand. “I've got beer.”

She wrinkles her nose. “No thank you.”

“Right, uh, there's pizza?”

“I already ate,” she says.

A silence stretches. Geralt settles into a chair and drinks a swig of his beer.

“Ban Ard's fine,” Yennefer says finally. “Some scratches and might be sore for a while, but no harm done. How's Roach?”

“Enjoying some extra rations tonight,” he says. “She's seen worse.”

“She's not just some old nag, is she?” she asks.

“Not to me,” he says. The warm light from a table lamp casts shadows on Yennefer's round face. “She's a retired nurse mare. Never foaled. No special breeding. Complete shit attitude toward anyone but the babies she raised all those years.”

“And you, of course.”

“Oh no, she hated my guts at first,” he says. Maybe it is the day's excitement that loosens his tongue or maybe the beer. He leans back in the chair to look at the slanted ceiling. “I was helping in the broodmare barn for the season. Had a maiden mare reject her filly and get put on Roach. She almost took my hand off the first day.”

The skylights in the roof are dark with settling night. Geralt closes his eyes and can see clearly the bank of stalls and the ornery red mare and the newborn filly bedded down in straw.

“Roach got a nasty case of mastitis. Udder infection. Treatment was... an experience.” Day after day in the darkened stall, the mare coaxed into stillness so Geralt could express nasty gunk from infected glands, poised to leap away if she got it in her head to strike with a hind hoof again as she had the first dozen times. “I spent weeks with her. Checking temps, monitoring swelling. She got worse before she got better. Then the vet said she'd never nurse a foal again. The barn manager decided to ship her to auction.”

“What did you do?” asks Yennefer, rapt.

“I let her go,” he says. “Took about an hour before I stopped being stupid and drove up to the auction house to bid on her.”

His windshield streaked with rain as he sped down the highway, cursing traffic. Splashing through mud puddles in the gravel drive at a run, ducking inside the barn just as her bidding started, hollering out a price from the back of the crowd. The red mare catching him in the stomach with a tossed head when he went to collect her. The clouds opening up with watery light as he led her up to his waiting trailer.

“Is that when you left?” Yennefer asks. He looks at her with a smile and a shake of his head. He stands to fish another beer from the fridge, cracks the cap off against the countertop, takes a long drink.

“You're still trying to get the story out of me,” he says. “No, I stayed for years after that.”

“Why, then?”

“Maybe there is no story, Yen,” he says and returns to sit. “It just wasn't for me anymore. I got tired. Gave notice, packed up Roach and went elsewhere.”

“You could have left the industry,” she says. “Done something else.”

“I could have. Construction work. Security, maybe,” he says.

“Why didn't you?”

Geralt laughs. “Horses are the only thing I know. I'm not good for much else.”

“Geralt,” she says, voice lowered to a whispered breath.

“Yennefer,” he says, a warning in his.

“Run from the past, from their expectations. Run from who you are, that's fine,” she says. “Don't run from me. Not when we both know you don't really want to.”

“You deserve better, Yen,” he says. “I can't give you anything you can't get elsewhere.”

“It doesn't have to be anything so dramatic, Geralt,” she says. “Like I said. Just stress relief.”

“You know it wouldn't be that simple.”

“Nothing about you is simple. It's why people are drawn to you. It's why I...” she trails off, doesn't finish the thought.

“It's late, Yen,” he says.

“You're a good man, Geralt,” Yennefer says as she rises to her feet. “Thank you for what you did today.” She stops with her hand on the doorknob, looks back. “I won't give up on this, you know. Not yet.”

“I know,” says Geralt, and she is gone, the door clicking closed behind her, her retreating footsteps quiet on the stairs.

* * *

After the incident with the loose horse, the tension escalates, shifting from something that bubbles beneath the surface as they vie for his attention into open hostility.

“Fuck off,” says Jaskier as Yennefer approaches the grooming stall where Lute dances in the crossties, Geralt running a soothing hand along his flank.

“Hasn't Vibrato run out of booboos for Geralt to put bandaids on?” she asks.

“Some of us have friends, Yennefer,” he says.

“I see he hasn't fucked you yet, then.” Jaskier's face burns red.

“Maybe I just keep things under wraps better than you do,” he says. “Your tongue is as loose as your horses.”

“Not as loose as your legs. How many stablehands have you been caught with again?”

“I'd rather be a slut than an ice cold--”

“Enough,” Geralt growls and ducks under the line of the crossties, hand on Lute's tensed neck. “If you two would like to stop acting like children, you know where to find me. I have work to do.”

Left alone together, the animosity may as well crackle audibly in the air like a live wire. The rest of the barn parts in waves around them while they stand facing one another in the center of the aisle.

“Why do you even bother?” Yennefer asks. “He's never going to go for someone like you.”

“You don't know him like I do,” Jaskier says, and she rolls her eyes.

“Your rich uncle can't buy your way into his pants,” says Yennefer.

“Maybe it's not about that!”

He knows as soon as her expression changes to open amusement that he's made a mistake.

“Oh my _God_ ,” she drawls, brows raised. “You're in love with him. You really are!”

“You-- I mean, you're-- I am _not_ ,” he sputters.

This newest morsel of spicy, hot gossip has made the rounds by the afternoon. After yet another pitying glance sent his way by a groom, Jaskier storms off to find Yennefer. She's lounging on the edge of one of the outdoor rings in a folding chair, her feet propped on the fence and visor pulled low against the sun as she barks occasional instructions into the arena.

“You _witch_ ,” he hisses. “You had to go and open your stupid flapping mouth and tell everyone--”

“I didn't need to tell anyone anything,” says Yennefer. “We were in the middle of the complex at the busiest time of the day. Not exactly private.”

“Now Geralt will--”

“Relax, buttercup,” she says. “Geralt makes a professional sport out of stuffing his head in the sand. He doesn't pay attention to gossip, and he probably wouldn't notice even if you tattooed 'I love you' on your forehead.” She settles back in her chair to focus on the horse cantering around the arena. “Which, by the way, could be a good look for you. Might cover up some of those wrinkles on your giant--”

“I don't know how he even tolerates you,” Jaskier huffs.

“Keep wondering about us, sweetheart,” she says to Jaskier's retreating form as he storms away. “It's the closest you'll ever get to him.”

* * *

It all finally comes to a head the very next day.

Jaskier starts his morning early, alarming his grooms and working students when he arrives in the barn fully-dressed and only somewhat groggy as the rising sun paints the outdoor arena footing a burnished copper, streaming through waving palm fronds. He waits by the fence cradling a thermos of coffee while Lute is quickly tacked and brought to him, the horse's forelock still sleep-mussed and eyes blinking against the light.

“Hey, buddy,” he says and smooths a hand down the horse's muzzle. The gelding's dark coat is uninterrupted except for a smooth-edged white marking the size of a fist between his nostrils, pink skin showing through where velvet fuzz gives way to the prickling whiskers on his lip.

Jaskier allows a moment to feel the gelding's lips wiggle against his hand.

Lute's time is almost done here, the young horse having learned the extent of what Jaskier can teach. Soon, he will go on to sell for some exorbitant price as the mount of some up and coming jump rider and maybe someday _Vibrato_ will be a name spoken with hushed reverence, the kind of horse even the most fickle of pig-headed equestrians can admit was one of a kind.

 _But Lute?_ Jaskier thinks, a pit of melancholy sinking in his stomach. That may be a name he alone will remember.

“I'm going to tell him I love him, you know,” Jaskier tells the horse. It feels very melodramatic when said out loud while the sun crests over the barn roof, but he supposes he may just be melodrama swaddled into a human-shaped package. He feels like he could burst with it. He feels like he might _die_.

Lute blinks at him with all the amber-eyed simplicity of an animal who has no clue that love can be so unduly complicated. It's unfair.

“I'm going to tell him today,” says Jaskier and presses his cheek against the horse's warm face, hoping no one is spying from the barn. “If I don't come back, you'll remember that you were my favorite, right? You'll be good?” The horse chews mildly at his bit, gaze empty of any comprehension.

Before he can babble more inane sentiment at a horse, Jaskier swings into the saddle.

Finishing his ride as the warm heat of the day begins to ripple across the arena, he allows the reins to slacken as Lute cools at a walk, muscled body veined with fading exertion and head swinging low.

At a gesture, a groom takes the horse's head, and Jaskier slips to the ground, giving the horse's damp shoulder one last pat before returning to the barn. He stows his helmet and spurs in his tack room cubicle, gives his riding boots a quick polish, and acknowledges his reflection in the dusty mirror on the back of the cabinet door with a curt nod. Ready as he'll ever be.

Then, he begins the walk down to the lower barn where his fate awaits him.

Yennefer follows.

“Not today, witch,” he says, resolutely turned ahead to ignore her. The warmth of the morning gives way to cool shade as the gravel path dips down into the little valley where the lower barn sits. A gentle wind rustles through the lowered boughs of the trees.

“You never crawl out of your crypt this early,” says Yennefer. “What are you up to?”

“Go be a nosy freak somewhere else,” says Jaskier.

“Going to see Geralt?”

“No, going to stomp about in the woods in my good boots like an idiot,” he says. “Of course to see Geralt.”

“Still on that, huh?” she laughs. “God, when are you going to admit– What's the saying, again? 'That one's too much horse for you'?”

“Can't you leave off for one fucking second?” he blurts as he rounds on her. The path has started to level out before the quiet barn. No sign of Geralt. “If he turns me down today, that's it, he's fair game. I'm out of your fucking hair.”

“God, you're here to profess your love to him, aren't you? That's why you look like you're marching toward your own funeral,” she says, eyes glinting like a predator zeroing in on for the kill. “You going to throw rocks at his bedroom window? Read him some poetry?”

“I'm going to fucking _gut you_ is what I'm going to do.”

“Ooh, big talk for someone who's never had to fight for anything in his life.”

“Oh woe is me, spare me the sob story, Yennefer,” he says, voice rising. “All your talent and good looks, and you're still going to die alone with your cunt withered up to a dry--”

He doesn't realize how close he has drawn to her until she shoves him away, a quick jab against his chest. He shoves back, and they trade jostling blows like that until, stumbling back from a firmer push, Yennefer's leg twists under her and her balance falters, falling sideways.

Directly into a waiting heap of manure and soiled bedding that mounds along the edge of the path.

It's as Yennefer, yowling like an aggrieved feline, emerges smeared and stained and stinking from the manure pile to see Jaskier looking smugly down his nose at her, that she knows quite assuredly she is going to rend him limb from limb.

“ _You--_ ,” she hisses, stalking toward Jaskier.

“Hey now, it's not my fault you were standing so close to the--” An expression of growing terror rises on his face as he fumbles backward. “Maybe if you weren't such a raging _bitch_ , this wouldn't have--”

She strikes once and then again, and then they're really scrabbling together this time. Her hand catches in the lining of his jacket and tears, and he grabs a fist of her hair because of course the bastard fucking fights dirty. She yowls, fingernails poised to claw but is interrupted when Geralt looms to pull them abruptly away from each other, held fast.

“Right,” he says. “Now, can we explain what the fuck is going on here?”

“Yennefer fucking--”

“This _asshole_ \--”

A frustrated growl from the normally stoic man breaks off their impending tirade before it can begin.

“Nevermind, I don't care,” he says with a shocking harshness. “I'm going to go upstairs. You can either fuck off _and leave me alone_ , or you can come up and act like adults.”

And he drops the both of them, staggering, from his hold and turns to climb the stairs.

* * *

It ends like this:

Yennefer and Jaskier follow after him, mute.

The man's broad back is a tense line above them on the stairs and as he crosses the modern-styled living room, not sparing a glance behind him. He does not pause to remove his boots so neither do they, the tread of dirty barn shoes against plush, grey carpet feeling almost more unnerving than his silent anger.

Beyond the kitchen is a white-washed bedroom, the roof slanting to a point above the bed, skylights spilling sun across the snow-white duvet. The bathroom door stands open, the sound of a tap running.

“In,” he grunts, and they hurry after him.

A glass-walled shower stretches across the far half of the room, a floor-length frosted glass window looking out over the woods below. Geralt bends at the sink wetting a washcloth, steam rising around his calloused hands.

“Geralt--” Jaskier begins, and a pointed look silences him.

“You're bleeding,” he says and hands him the washcloth. Along his neck, a line of angry scratches from Yennefer's nails is reflected in the mirror above the sink. Jaskier watches himself take the offered washcloth. “And Yen, you're covered in shit.” This too is reflected clearly.

The three of them make an odd picture together. Geralt, tall and rugged and sulking. Jaskier with his scratched neck and torn jacket and splotches of pink color high in his cheeks. Yennefer with her dark hair frizzed in tangles and her burgundy lipstick smeared at the edges. Geralt all broad, firm bulk and Jaskier lithe, feminine boyishness and Yennefer petite and curving.

The same as it happened long weeks ago meeting Jaskier's eyes across the yard, a sharp thrill of clarity rushes down Yennefer's spine.

“Fuck it,” Yennefer says under her breath and is suddenly divesting herself of her stained clothing. She leans to unzip her boots, clods of dirt flying from the soles as they fall, and she sweeps her polo over her head, thumbs catching in the waistband of her breeches to shimmy them down her hips.

“Uhhh,” says Geralt.

“What the fuck are you doing?” asks Jaskier as she's twisting her arms back to unhook her bra. She shrugs and lets it fall to the floor, left standing in nothing but leopard print panties before them.

“Taking a fucking shower,” she says and steps out of her panties and into the spray of the showerhead.

All slick nakedness lost in a rising smear of fog, she says, “get in here, you idiots.”

And they do.

* * *

And then, it's like this:

Geralt kisses Yennefer under the spray of the shower or Yennefer kisses Geralt, up on tiptoes to meet him, and when he pulls away, he turns to press Jaskier against the tinted window and kiss him as well. Or Jaskier kisses Geralt, down along a bronzed shoulder wet with shining rivulets until Yennefer pulls him back to her, and it goes on like that until the water runs cold.

It's later in the sprawling bed that Yennefer first kisses Jaskier, an odd, soft press of lips that deepens quickly to something with teeth and sharp gasps of breath.

“I thought you were queer,” Yennefer says into his mouth, and he bites her.

“I'm fucking bisexual, you absolute--” She bites him back.

Geralt is a looming shadow above them and then between them, their lips on either side of his throat marking a shared claim.

He refuses to be coaxed into a frenzy, each kiss a tender, solid thing, again and again. To Yennefer, each one says _I see your strength. I see you._ To Jaskier, it is _I know your courage. You are known._ And every frantic, searching press of lips to Geralt's skin is _you are deserving, worthy, wanted, enough._

Jaskier doesn't say _I love you_ , not then, not that morning, and Yennefer doesn't mock him for the breathy, keening sounds he makes when Geralt takes his cock in a rough hand, at least not until later, and Geralt doesn't chastise them for bickering even as Yennefer tears a condom in her teeth and slips back onto Geralt's girth, Jaskier kissing up her belly in between muttered counters to her whispered insults.

“You're intolerable,” Yen says with a tug at his hair, even as Geralt palms her hips and pulls her back to him.

“You're completely mental,” Jaskier says, even as she tugs at him harder until they're kissing again and her curled fingers slick to jerk him off between their firm bellies.

“You're both going to be the death of me,” Geralt says with a pointed thrust, and it's the truest sentiment spoken aloud for the next sweaty, sun-soaked hours.

* * *

Afterward, the three of them luxuriate in a warm pile, dozing in pools of sunlight as the day outside goes on without them. There is work to be done and responsibilities to be attended to, but it all drifts far away, their small moment allowing only languid stretching and slow kisses and touches both affectionate and possessive.

With a lazy smile, Yennefer asks, “so, are you ever going to tell us why you left Kaer Morhen?” Jaskier groans, and Geralt drops his head back to the pillow with a laugh.

“Fuck, Yen,” he says, all exasperated fondness. “You are the most stubborn person in the goddamn world.” His fingers tangle in her dark hair, other arm tucked to hold Jaskier to him, palm spread on his bare chest. “Who knows. Call it Fate for all I care.”

“So you're really not going to te--”

“Hush,” Geralt says and Jaskier tips up to kiss her quiet. Yennefer isn't the type to chock anything up to bullshit like Destiny, but if anything's inevitable, it might as well be this.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me if you didn't understand any of the horse vocab on tumblr @[limerental](https://limerental.tumblr.com/)
> 
> lute is based on [cortes c](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/28/7d/c5/287dc53faddc46e2b6dac54e66342867.jpg) but dark bay instead of black and with a marking like [this](http://www.slushcreekwalkers.com/images/horses/SCW%20Jubals%20Pixie%20Stick3.jpg) just to clear up any burning questions about my very important horse oc

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] i been in the valley](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536315) by [Jet_pods (Jetainia)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jetainia/pseuds/Jet_pods)




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